


First Blush

by NorroenDyrd



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adorkable, Awkward Romance, Beginnings, Blushing, Bonding, Dialogue Heavy, Dorks in Love, Dragon Age Quest: In Hushed Whispers, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff and Humor, Haven (Dragon Age), Inquisitor Backstory, Insecurity, Love at First Sight, M/M, Pictures, Secret Admirer, Silly, Skyhold, Slice of Life, inner monologues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 18:49:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11950437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: A collection of tiny ficlets about four different Inquisitors, their hidden insecurities, and how their respective love interests made them blush for the first time.





	First Blush

**Author's Note:**

> Each snippet will be preceded by a screenshot to help better visualize the Inquisitor in question

 

'All I'm saying is,' Blackwall chuckles, with a small shake of his head, as he butters up a soft, porous slice of bread for himself, 'Never play diamondback with Solas. Taught him the game last night, and he went on and turned the tables on me. I lost everything to the barefoot blighter; had to walk back to my quarters with a bucket for my bits'.  
  
Sera, who has already finished making a snack for herself and stuffed it inside her mouth, lets out  a tremendous guffaw that almost makes a wet, half chewed-up ball of bread roll back out onto the tavern table.  
  
'Oh, you must have looked grand!' she sings hoarsely after a loud gulp and a belch, slamming her fist somewhere into the ribs of the Herald, Naali Adaar, who is kneading a bowl of potato mash with a spoon by her side. 'Eh, Glowy-Thingy?'  
  
Naali rolls up her eyes with a loud snort - and then, with no warning or explanation, slams her spoon down and lifts her hand to her face, covering her mouth.  
  
Blackwall starts.  
  
'That was probably... a distasteful sort of humour for...' he begins, his posture growing more tense by the moment.  
  
'Naaah, you don't know Glowy!' Sera assuages him with a careless wave of her hand. 'She loves these sorts of jokes! She just smiles like this, yeah?'  
  
'What am I gonna do,' Naali cuts in, with a tone of nonchalant rudeness, her mouth still hidden. 'If my smile is ugly as fuck'.  
  
She does sincerely believe this. This is what she has been taught to think about herself, all throughout her childhood, as the lone ox girl growing up in a human village. Perhaps if her parents were around more, they would have taught her to see beauty in her bulky grey body and in her angular, square-jawed face. But her father, a stupid young Qunari who fell in love with his breeding mate and allowed her to persuade him to leave, killed himself when she was still an infant, unable to handle the anguish of living outside his role. And her mother spent way too much time away from home, doing mercenary work, so Naali was left to fend for herself. And fend for herself she did, trying to grow as thick as skin as she could, and to pretend that the insults did not matter.  
  
Except that they did. They always did. Every 'freak', every 'grey face', every 'cow'. They mattered - and they hurt.  
  
Especially insults directed at her smile - stretched out and crooked, with one corner of her mouth rising up and the other getting pulled down, and revealing a row of uneven, sparse teeth, sharp like a mabari's. A hideous thing, that, by all accounts.  
  
It's not that Naali smiles often: spitting out curses or making snide remarks with an utterly impenetrable expression is far more of a natural element for her. But in the rare cases when a smile does cross her lips (these days, it usually means that she is hanging around Varric, Sera, or this new Warden fellow), she always, always hides her mouth.  
  
These folks she's met - they might well come to be her friends some day. And a disgusting leer like this is not something you subject your friends to. She should not be frightening them like this; instead, she should be thinking of ways to thank them for sticking with her - because pretty people, normal people, rarely give her the time of day.  
  
She may have tried to respond to being shunned by rolling spit in her mouth, and by sticking her middle finger out on both hands, like she didn't care, like she didn't need pretty friends... But she cannot lie to herself, all the way deep down: in there, in her gut, she is grateful that these pretties from the Inquisition tolerate her. She may have even started to care for them, for all these tiny squishy pretties she has to protect in battle.  
  
So yeah. No scaring the pretties with her ugly smile.    
  
'I don't think a smile can be ugly,' Blackwall muses, looking back down at his bread-and-butter, his tone suddenly a bit too wistful for a simple suppertime conversation. 'If it's a happy smile. Because happiness is... Ah, never mind'.  
  
Naali does not move her hand - but the pupils of her pale eyes grow wider, and she feels an odd warm peck against her cheekbones. Doesn't make much sense: she has not had nearly enough to drink to get flushed like this. And the heating in the room has not changed either... She thinks.

  
  
***

 

  
  
'All right, all right,' Dorian says to himself, after he has splashed his way to the corner of the dungeon that is not taken up by an enormous, sloshing dark-green puddle, and finished casting a crackling, orange-aura spell on his tall dainty boots to get his feet dry.  
  
'Let's assume we are still in Redcliffe... Then, the question would be not where we are, but when we are... We might have been moved forward into the future!'  
  
'You think it's that... that time magic... thing... at work again? Can it do that?' the city elf Herald  asks, in a very odd, stifled voice, which turns into a tiny squeak by the end of the sentence, as if he was a bird hatchling, held up in a human's fist and about to be squashed into a lifeless ball of feathers.  
  
The Tevinter grimaces in distaste at the prospect of stepping into the water again - but still wades back to where Lavellan stands and peers into his face.  
  
'Why are you talking like this?' he asks, eyebrow raised. 'Are you quite all right... Wyon, was it? Let me take a look to see if you have been injured; I must admit we never accounted for a non-mage using the... Wait, are you sucking in your stomach?'  
  
Wyon exhales and then lets out a sheepish (even helpless) laugh.  
  
He is no healer, but he once heard an alienage elder explain that all bodies react differently to not getting enough food. In the case of some people, hunger turns their bodies into greedy hoarders, obsessed with building up as much fat as they can whenever their owners eat even the measliest morsel. Such was Wyon's fate.  
  
Much as the city guards loved pushing him out of the crowd before the Chantry inspectors, as proof that 'our elves are fat and content; they live a life of plenty', he is, in fact, no better-fed than the rest of the 'mangy alienage rabbits'. He just has the misfortune of getting chubby easily. This would often make him the butt of other elves' jokes, and he accepted that, with a quiet, meek smile. If poking fun at his pudgy belly and his dumpling-like face brightened up a dreary day in the oppressive cage of the alienage walls - well then, he was happy to make himself useful.  
  
Now, on the other hand... Now, things are different. Now, he is having an insane time-travelling adventure in the company of the most impeccably handsome man he has ever seen: owner of a smoothly chiselled profile, with not a line out of place, like those awe-inspiring statues in Val Royeaux, and a soft, sensual mouth curve, and that shemlen thing under his nose that actually does not look ludicrous on him and perfectly completes his face... And, walking sheepishly in this man's shadow, never before has poor little Wyon been more painfully aware of his own piteously comical appearance.  
  
So he has, indeed, been trying to hold his breath and flatten his ridiculous, wobbly stomach, to keep this... mesmerizing vision of utter beauty from twisting in disgust.  
  
When, disoriented by Dorian's question, he lets himself go, his vision grows dim with unshed tears.  
  
'I... I have been trying... to look my best... Like... Like less of a... potato...' he mumbles weakly, his insides boiling with the sickening realization of what utter nonsense he is spouting.  
  
'Well, aren't you adorable!' Dorian chortles.  
  
Then, he lifts his foot out of the water, like a cat that has stepped into something sticky, and adds,  
  
'How about you and I clean up this Venatori mess first? Then, the people of Thedas will laud you as the most heroic potato of them all! Not that there was anything potato-like about you in the first place'.  
  
Varric would whack him on the head with Bianca for this, but Wyon really, really would have preferred it if the red wave splashing against his face came from a nearby corrupted lyrium crystal rather than his own blush.

  
  
***

 

  
  
Okay then, gotta be careful. One foot after the other. It would have helped a lot if he was one of them lithe, bendy elven types - but he is not. He has to make do with his square, bulky dwarven frame, built for winning brawls and tossing pesky lawmen off moving carriages, and thrashing the money out of Carta debtors - not for pulling some impossible acrobatic stunt on that narrow strip of crumbling stone when the scaffolding ends and the yet unrepaired Skyhold wall begins.  
  
But hey, he started the job, and he has got to finish it. The little fellow relies on him - just look at the tiny fuzzball, stirring on his large, coarse, callused palm, too young and weak and dumb to make it to the nest back on his own... Or her own, who knows. Though something tells him that this is a boy-bird, peeping softly in his grasp. Girls are generally smarter than this; it is boys who think they know better and don't learn their lessons and end up wallowing in the muck, so far from their nest, calling for the grown-ups to save them. Or least, he has had to deal with boys like this for most of his life... And those boys included himself, a hot-headed little blighter that would have gotten himself killed a hundred times over by now if the Carta didn't have his back.  
  
Heh, the guys back home are probably mighty pissed that he has dropped out of the lyrium trade. He was a damn fine muscle, after all, if he does say so himself. Winner of all them strongman contests out there (the bosses didn't even have to rig them), and a great battle asset to use, even against, hey, five, seven, ten humans. Well, what's done is done; while they are shitting their breeches as they strain to find him a replacement, he is out here, yelling at stupid nobles to behave, and kicking crazy darkspawn in the balls, and... as of now... trying to put a bird hatchling back where it belongs.  
  
He is almost there. One last stretch, one last push - and he has reached the branch, balancing on tiptoe on a wobbly pile of rubble, with a steep drop to the ground on either side of him. The hatchling rolls off his sweaty fingers, back onto the cozy bed of poofy down and pretty little twigs that his mama and papa have prepared for him.  
  
He sure hopes they will not kick the fella right back out; he thinks he heard that wild animal parents can reject their babies if the stranger's scent on them is too strong. Kind of like when those prim and proper caste dwarves don't want nothing to do with their kids if they've been hanging around the casteless. He's had a few buddies like that: former little Merchants or Warriors, lost and confused after being disowned and forced to find a life for themselves on the surface. He took them all under his wing, taught them the smuggling trade - he supposes he can do the same with Fuzzball here, if his old folks get mad that he's rubbed shoulders with a Carta thug. Just gotta figure out how to train Noodle not to eat him.  
  
Though, as it turns out, there is no need for that: mama and papa birdie start flitting excitedly around their prodigal offspring (is that the word? he's never been keen on them Chantry fables, not that the Chantry cares about preaching to the dwarves anyway), after which everyone settles comfortably and it is time to...  
  
'Milord Cadash! What are you doing?! Oh goodness, how did you get up here! You might get hurt!'  
  
Oh sod it. She has spotted him out of one of the castle windows. He can see her now, the sweet Lady Ambassador, fluttering on the spot like a fretful golden butterfly, her… so-soddingly-star-like-Stone-help-him… eyes fixed right on him.  
  
Sod it, sod it, sod it. She will put two and two together real quick - a sharp, smart lady like her - and figure out that he, Kulak Cadash, a raging ball of bulging muscle, who does not even deign to pick up a warhammer unless it is at least twice his size, who cracks nuts with his teeth and solid stone walls with his head, who can kill a man with a well-aimed spit, who once (almost) managed to drink the Iron Bull under the table... that he... that he... spends his spare time saving baby birds!  
  
And after that, it will not be long before she discovers that he has a stray kitten living under his bed - a mischievous little duster that he has nicknamed Noodle, because the way he knocks things off tables reminds Cadash of Commander Cullen sweeping down the map markers in frustration, and Sera once called Cullen 'Ser Noodle Hair' - and that he tears up when he hears babies cry! His reputation as a savage, rock-biting berserker of an Inquisitor will be ruined... And worst of all, the lady he is so fond of grinning at, after performing yet another one of his feats of brutish strength, will think him a total wet blanket! Oh, double sod it; triple fucking sod it!  
  
'I am fine!' he calls back stiffly, beginning to clamber back down. 'I just... Eh!'  
  
He makes a vague wave with his hand, unable to come up with a coherent conclusion. Especially since someone seems to have slapped a red-hot mask over his face; makes it hard to talk.  
  
'Oh, Milord, there is no need to blush!' the Ambassador exclaims, pushing herself out of the window down to the waist and smiling from ear to ear... A bit unlike her usual calm politeness.  
  
'Kindness to the small and vulnerable is a most commendable trait!'  
  
Cadash, who has already made it to the ground, wraps his arms around his head and pants like a rabid bronto. The blasted mask now makes it hard to breathe as well. And he is not entirely sure if this is because the excited human in the window has alerted half of Skyhold to his antics, or because she called him... 'commendable'.

  
  
***

  
  
Enasalin Lavellan narrows his eyes and draws the string, tilting the bow as high up as he can. Let us see how she will intercept this one.  
  
The string twangs, still quivering a few moments after he releases it, while the training arrow traces an impossibly steep curve, threatening to vanish somewhere beyond the roofs of Haven, never to be seen again.  
  
But his human opponent has been watching him keenly; and the moment he fires his shot, she sets off running, ripping through the crust of snow with her metal boots. She races on and on, somehow overcoming the constricting weight of her armour; and when the arrow's path begins to slant down, she raises her round wooden sparring shield - and for what could well be the twentieth time this session, the pouch with paint, which has been attached to the tip, bursts against the shield's surface, adding another bright red smudge to all the rest.  
  
'And one more point for you, Seeker,' Lavellan says genially, catching up with her.  
  
She looks out of breath - but immensely satisfied; and he, too, has to admit that this little spar of theirs has put him in a remarkably good mood, one comparable only to the sensation of temporary peace that his secret hobby, dancing, sometimes brings him. It settles him into a steady rhythm, and helps him, at least for a short while, reassemble the pieces of himself that are floating about in the black void of world-weariness.  
  
'You are not a sore loser,' the human remarks, shaking his hand firmly. 'I do not think I would have been as gracious if I failed to catch your arrows'.  
  
This is not the first training session they have had together, and not the first time she makes this gesture of gratitude. As of late, she has taken to lingering, more and more, with Enasalin's hand clasped in hers and her deep brown eyes holding the gaze of his frosty grey. He does not object, for this gives him the chance to silently appreciate how beautiful she is, her image completed by the sparkle-like snowflakes that float down onto her shoulders.  
  
This is likely to remain the greatest extent to which he will ever enjoy her company - and so it probably should, his convoluted life path being so different from the straight line she has always walked. She is always the first to break their handshake and draw away, her lips pursed into a tight line and her nostrils quivering in an embarrassed huff. And when she does that this time, the edge of her metal cuirass catches against his sleeve and, pulling the cloth after it with an ear-splitting noise, makes a misshapen, frayed hole right below his shoulder.  
  
'Oh,' the Seeker begins - and does not speak again for a while, overcome by a sudden need to clear her throat.  
  
'It was not my intention to...'  
  
'It's quite all right,' Enasalin hastens to reassure her. 'I can sew'.  
  
He clutches the edges of the tear together - but it is not the ruined fabric that he is concerned with. It is what it has revealed: an inked picture of an elven woman that is holding up a bow and also somehow manages to support a pair of enormous, over-exaggerated breasts, with hardened nipples that are visible even through a strip of animal fur that is supposed to cover her torso (just as a similar strip serves her as a loincloth below a painfully hourglass-like waist that does not quite match up with an endless stack of square, almost masculine abdominal muscles). Not the most glorious image to be parading around on your skin.  
  
Unfortunately, the Seeker does, in fact, notice that Enasalin has something etched into his shoulder. And the discovery makes her face light up in an unexpectedly girlish delight.  
  
'You have a tattooooo?' she says, drawing out the last word in her Nevarran accent. 'Is it from the time when you were a sailor? At least, you were one in Varric's tall tales'.  
  
Enasalin inclines his head reluctantly and side-steps a little bit away from the Seeker.  
  
'After... being separated from my clan, I was a member of Captain Isabella's crew at one point, yes,' he explains. 'That was how I met Varric and Hawke... and Hawke's wife, a fellow Dalish of the Sabrae Clan, who helped me track down my people. As for the tattoo...'  
  
He locks his fingers over his throat, his own shame giving him a sore feeling, as if he has caught a cold.  
  
'I parted ways with my clan before I could get my vallaslin... The ceremonial markings I now have on my face. I only got them when I returned... And back when I was sailing... I was... bare-faced... And... This made me feel inadequate... So a fellow sailor offered to cheer me up with a tattoo... Of one of our Creators... Andruil, the goddess of the hunt... When the conversation occurred... we were both... very deep in our cups... and... it seemed like the best idea in the world... Little did I know he was going to portray Andruil like a caricature of an Antivan whore...'  
  
He swallows and concludes, hoping that this awkward tale will turn into a decent enough joke,  
  
'Moral of the story: don't get tattoos of holy figures when drunk'.  
  
The Seeker regards him in silence for a couple of seconds - and then, contrary to anything he might have anticipated, blurts out,  
  
'Thank you'.  
  
His eyes must look like they are about to roll out of their sockets when he gapes back at her, because she has to comment,  
  
'For someone with a past as storied as yours, you rarely talk about yourself. And as I... I also do not feel like confiding in every single stranger... I assume... This means that we have... come to trust each other...'  
  
'Quite an improvement from "Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now," Enasalin says, with a reserved half-smile.  
  
He must have mimicked her voice without realizing it (acting was one of the skills he had to picked up during his time at a pleasure house, which was where his captain found him) - because she retorts, trying to appear indignant but not quite succeeding,  
  
'Ugh! Is this what I sound like?'  
  
Enasalin says nothing, suddenly realizing that he is watching the dance of sparkles around the Seeker again.  
  
No, he hasn't talked about his past to anyone; he is not like Varric or Isabella, or Isabella's good friend Zevran, or that Qunari mercenary and his lieutenant that they have recently hired. He does not liven up tavern conversations with fantastical yarns of his adventures at sea, or the peculiar quirks of the clients he had to service, or the mishaps Hawke and Merrill dragged him into...  For him, his former life - or lives, rather: a brothel dancer, a pirate, a Dalish hunter - is not like a glittering cloak he can flap around dramatically, drawing sighs of awe from the audience. They are more like... Many, many washes that the cloak has gone through, till its bright shades grew muddy and faded, and he stopped being certain what to do with it - with himself - any more.  
  
But maybe it is time he looked at it in a different way; maybe it is time he dug up the bleak old rags that have weighed him down for so long, and turn them into colourful wings. He has an audience now - a group of fellow misfits who, unlike so many of his clan mates that became estranged from him when he returned home from his gruelling travels, will actually care to listen to him. Especially this... this beautiful, snow-wreathed human.  
  
'I have happened to recall a particularly stormy voyage I once had to survive,' he says slowly. 'I can tell you of it at camp tonight... If you wish'.  
  
The Seeker nods - and, for whatever reason, Enasalin feels a powerful pulse of blood rush to his cheeks, leaving them warm to the touch. Perhaps it is the frost. It had better be the frost.

**Author's Note:**

> Enasalin's backstory is covered in more detail in Lavellan Dances; Wyon's is in Tremulous Baker Boy.


End file.
